like a glory against the dark back. ground of the velvet chair. Altogether she looked such a dainty creature that it seemed a little thing that she should be regardless of the lives of others.

You did see me then?' I asked. 'Well, I saw you without seeing you, if you can understand that; I was taken up with showing Guy my new ponies; you never saw him before, did you?' • Whom?'

Guy-my cousin-your cousin, too, isn't he? Oh, no, your second cousin, that's it.'

'No, I never saw him before.' 'He's my salvation at Christmas,' the blonde beauty said, with a little yawn; 'he gets up charades. Do you like charades? And we always have a ball or two while he is here.'

Is this his home, or yours?'

'My home now-his in time to come. I live with grandpapa and aunt Rachael; Guy is the heir.' She dropped her voice to a whisper as she said this, then she raised it again suddenly, to ask, 'Do you like Christmas better in the country than in London ?'

'I have never spent a Christmas in the country yet,' I replied.

'Oh, you lucky girl!' she cried; ' and I have never spent one out of it; I'd give anything-except my ponies-to go to town and see all the burlesques; I don't care for the pantomimes; have you seen many?'

was

"I told her "yes;" while Guy was alive I saw all such things, now I " sick of them," I added, passionately. 'Who was Guy?' she asked, soberly; and she seemed sorry when I told her he was my brother.

But such a bright creature cannot be sorry long for the troubles of others. She was up dancing away towards the piano, in answer to somebody's request that she would sing, before the mist had cleared off my eyes which the mention of Guy had caused. When I could see clearly again, Guy Pomfret, my other cousin, was standing talking to her while she fluttered over some music, and seemed unable to make a choice of a song.

Presently, however, she found one, or he found it for her. At any rate he placed it, and kept his hand ready to turn the page while she sang, and I got drawn up nearer to them by her voice, and watched his face as he watched hers. She had a ringing, clear, flexible voice. I can express what its sound was by naming a colour more clearly than in any other way-it was a bright blue; it was like a silver bell, as cold and with as much feeling.

She was singing a plaintive, passionate ballad, and she sang it correctly and cleverly; but I felt dissatisfied with the way in which she warbled out those reproachful words—

'You should have told me that before, Jamie, You should have told me that before, laddie."

I was glad when Guy Pomfret looked dissatisfied, too, and stopped her before she had finished it quite, by saying, 'You never can do that mignonne― try something else.'

She frowned for an instant, and then got up, saying, 'No, no, some one else, and then I will try to do justice to another of your favourites, Guy; it's not for want of desire to please you that I failed this time, sir,' she added, in a low voice, with a little laugh that was slightly tinged with vexation.

I did not hear what his answer was, for at that moment Miss Rachael spoke to me.

'Do you sing, my dear?-will you oblige us?'

'I shall be very happy,' I answered, and then I felt horribly hot and uncomfortable. My voice was a low, rolling, tremulous contralto what would it sound like after that silver bell!

'Will you like to try some of mine, or will you sing something of your own?' Ida asked, good-naturedly; and then Mr. Pomfret came forward to 'see if he could help me to a selection,' he said, and I knew that I was fairly committed to it; so I said I would try what I knew best;' and half-staggered by my own temerity, I sang some verses poor Guy had written and composed once after a visit to the Dunbar side of our family :

"There's a breath of freedom on the ground,
Where wild the heather grows,
That makes it dearer to my heart,
Than England's emblem rose;
It springs around the thistle,

The stern flower of the north,
It decks the plains of England,

And the bonnets of the Forth.
Those purple sprigs! no flowers sure,
Blooming in other dells,

Are half so sweet to Scottish hearts,

As Scotland's heather bells.

For on mountain brow, by lowland loch,
Through every kind of weather,
We roamed about, unchecked, unchid,
O'er plains of gorse and heather.
'We still can claim a Scottish name,

And the Scotch blood in us tells,
As here on English ground we roam,

Through Scotland's heather bells.
For the breath of freedom 's on the soil,
Where wild the heather grows,
They hold their own most gallantly,
Against the English rose."